This invention relates to the handling of strip material, which term as used herein includes slabs and like generally planar material. It is concerned particularly, but not necessarily exclusively, with the handling of material in steel processing plant, such as hot strip mills, where the material may require to be progressed along conveying means through successive process stages or to be deposited and held at a particular station between stages.
It is known to provide a heat shield arrangement in a hot strip mill to control the temperature of the strip or slab on a roller table between processing stages. To protect the heat shield arrangement from damage by material that has been distorted to a non-planar state, it is known (EP No. 0042656) to place a reinforced frame or plate guide structure at an entry region of the roller table preceding the heat shield arrangement over the main length of the table, this structure providing an increased-height passage for the introduction of turned-up material. The passage decreases in height as it leads into the main region of the heat shield arrangement where there is a space of limited height between the table and the heat-shielding panels overlying the table. The entry structure has a very robust construction so that it offers considerable resistance to impact and thereby at least partially corrects any turn-up of the entering material that causes the material to contact it with force, so protecting the more fragile heat-shielding panels that follow it.
In such arrangements large shock loads must be accepted by and transmitted from the guide structure to the supporting frame and the adjacent regions of the roller table foundations if it is to be effective in reducing the turn-up of the leading edges of strips.
The problem of accommodating large impact loads from such a barrier becomes especially acute if a clear space is to be left at one side of the roller table, e.g. as an outlet path for scrapped or damaged material. Such a requirement means that the guide structure must comprise a cantilevered support frame and as a result the possible impact loading becomes far more critical. If a protective entry guide structure is to be fitted to an existing installation, it will usually be necessary to secure the cantilever arm rigidly to the base structure of the roller table, which then has the added duty of supporting the full load of the system in operation, but even if the entry guide can be mounted independently, e.g. on cross members extending under the roller table, as may be more easily possible in a new installation, there is a need to limit the effects of shock loads.